20 February 2011 | International Solidarity Movement
Eight young Palestinian men were arrested by the Israeli military yesterday in the village of Deir Al Ghusun, north of Tulkarem. Three of them remain in custody, Jala Anwar, Omar Abu Safa and Sohayb Abu Shakra, all aged 17 years. The teenagers were taking part in a protest against the illegal Israeli separation barrier when soldiers and the border police entered through the gate on foot and in army jeeps. The protesters were running away from the army, but the soldiers managed to grab and take eight young men from the crowd and detain them in their army jeeps. Activists tried to get between the soldiers and one of the youths in an attempt to protect him, but without success.
Protestors in Tulkarem
It is still unclear what will happen to the three boys who are still in Israeli custody, and the families have not been told there were they are being held.
Newly dedicated Rachel Corrie Street in Ramallah.On March 16th 2003, an Israeli bulldozer killed the American activist Rachel Corrie in Rafah, Gaza. Today, in Kafr Sur, near Tulkarem, and in Ramallah, family, friends and supporters gathered together to commemorate the anniversary of her murder.
Students of Kafr Sur Secondary School, who have been working on a research project about Rachel’s life and death, today marked the anniversary with a march to a memorial stone at the entrance to the village. The students were joined by children from the nearby primary school, as the stone was unveiled and speeches were delivered by the headmaster, one of the students, and an ISM activist.
A boy in Tulkarem smiles and holds photos of Rachel.Approximately fifty Palestinians, Internationals and media then joined Craig and Cindy Corrie, Rachel’s parents, for the inauguration ceremony of Rachel Corrie Street in Ramallah. Speeches were delivered by both the Mayor and Governor of Ramallah, the Minister of State, National Parties’ Coordinator, an ISM activist and Rachel’s parents.
At both events, speakers talked of the lasting impact left by Rachel, as an inspiration to those involved with the non-violent resistance in Palestine and across the world. Rachel’s mother spoke about how her daughter has become a symbol for the anti-Occupation movement, and of how grateful she and her family are to the Palestinians they have come to know and love over the past seven years for their unfailing support, despite the suffering they themselves continue to experience.
The coming weeks also mark the seventh anniversaries of the shootings of the British activist Thomas Hurndall, who was shot in the head whilst shielding children in Rafah from Israeli sniper fire, and who died in hospital nine months later, and Brian Avery, an American who was shot in the face in Jenin, but who mercifully survived. Last weekend saw the one year anniversary of Tristan Anderson being hit in the head with a high velocity tear gas canister in Nilin. Tristan is still recovering in an Israeli hospital.
The village of Shufa continues to struggle with restricted road access and no electricity grid connection, as a new road gate is established at the entrance to the village.
Israeli Occupation Forces established a new road gate at the entrance to Shufa village one week ago, enabling the military to restrict or forbid access to the village at any given time, by closing the gates. The gates are effectively – or at times a precursor to – a form of road block. A similar gate was constructed 2 days ago in the neighboring village of Seffarin at the intersection of the village’s road with an Israeli road. The increasing number of road gates in the region contribute to slowly creeping network of apartheid roads and restriction of movement for Palestinians living in the West Bank.
Shufa village has been split in half and isolated by road blocks and apartheid roads. The lower half of the village is about 8km from the city of Tulkarm but villagers cannot drive up the hill to their neighbours, less than 1km away. Earth mounds and concrete blocks stop vehicle access to the short stretch of ‘settlers only’ road, which used to link the two halves of the village.
The section of the village located on the hill was denied all road access for 6 years. Now there is only one road open, on the opposite side to Tulkarm, so that the villagers must now travel 22km through a checkpoint to get to the city 8km away. The blocked roads have been opened for only 3 and a half days in the last 8 years. Severe travel restrictions and delays have caused at least 3 deaths in the village due to refusal of access to Red Crescent ambulances trying to enter/exit Shufa.
The village is not allowed to connect to nearby power lines, forcing residents to run generators for a few hours a day. The system of road blocks have made the transport of supplies to the village incredibly problematic and expensive. Residents fear that even this may be stopped if the army decides to shut the gate on the open road.
A few hundred metres from the village lies the illegal settlement of Avne Hefez. It was originally built in 1985 on land belonging to Shufa. It has since expanded and spawned an outpost. The villagers now have to apply for permission to farm some of their own land. Even with permits they are often refused or scared off. According to residents of Shufa, many of the houses in the settlement appear to be empty or only used for holidays, or ‘part-time settlers’. A small military base is also located inside the settlement.
US Aid has funded a new school in Shufa, which could have been built with local engineers and labour for half the price, and given the local economy a much-needed boost. The new school comes complete with computers, but no electricity to run them.
Hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah rally in solidarity with the Gaza Freedom March on New Year's Eve Day
Thousands of people in Egypt, the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel, and the occupied West Bank rallied on New Year’s Eve Day to call for an end to the international blockade and siege of Gaza, but the protests were marred by police brutality in Cairo and the cancellation of a solidarity action in the occupied West Bank town of Tulkarm at the behest of the Palestinian Authority.
In Cairo, Egyptian riot police brutally beat Gaza Freedom March demonstrators who were unable to enter the Gaza Strip after the Egyptian government permitted less than 100 of the 1,350 participants from crossing the Rafah border into Gaza.
“Members of the Gaza Freedom March are being forcibly detained in hotels around town, in Lotus and Liala, as well as violently forced into pens in Tahrir Square by Egyptian police and additional security forces,” Codepink said in a released statement.
“Reports of police brutality are flooding a delegate legal hotline faster than the legal support team can answer the calls. The reports span from women being kicked, beaten to the ground and dragged into pens, at least one confirmed account of broken ribs, and many left bloody.”
Lara Elborno, a Palestinian-American, University of Iowa alumni, and law student at Loyola University in Chicago confirmed the reports.
“They broke a guy’s rib,” Elborno said from Cairo. “They beat people with walkie talkies. My sister Dana got her camera taken and they stole the card with her pictures on it. Five security forces surrounded her and threw her to the ground. They pulled her hair and punched and kicked her. This is only one of many stories.”
US citizen punched with police walkie talkie during protests in Cairo
In the Gaza Strip, about 100 international solidarity activists joined 500 Palestinians living in Gaza for a rally and march denouncing the blockade. About 1,000 Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and Israeli Jews demonstrated on the Israeli side of the Erez border crossing, according to Haaretz.
In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, more than 250 Palestinians rallied in solidarity with the Free Gaza March during an event organized by the Palestinian Popular Committees of the West Bank.
“We are calling on the people of Palestine to work together to end the occupation,” said Iyad Burnat, a community organizer with the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements. “Only by uniting the resistance can we succeed.”
But the demonstration in Ramallah was curtailed after the Palestinian Authority prohibited the rally from marching through the city. And a similar solidarity action in the West Bank city of Turkarem, near the Northwest border with Israel, was cancelled after the Palestinian Authority prohibited the demonstration from taking place.
“As you know, this rally and march was supposed to be held today in solidarity with other demonstrations to protest the siege in Gaza,” said Abdelkarim Dalbah, a community organizer with the Turkarem Popular Committee. “Unfortunately the Palestinian Authority has forbidden this demonstration.”
“The P.A. has their own point of view and it is wrong,” Dalbah continued. “They say this demonstration is supporting Hamas, and they say they don’t want to add more tension with Israel after the attacks in Nablus last week. They support Gaza in behind closed-door meetings and in public speeches, but they will not support Gaza on the streets.”
Some organizers say that the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority is actually attempting to co-opt the Gaza Freedom March movement by holding celebrations marking the 45th anniversary of its founding on the same day as the solidarity demonstrations. Although the Free Gaza protest in Ramallah was attended by most of Palestine’s largest political parties, Fatah banners were noticeably absent. Fatah held a seperate rally at a different time and location.
About 100 Palestinian Christians also attended a candle-light vigil for Gaza in Manger Square in Bethlehem.
The Gaza Freedom March and the Palestinian Popular Committees of the West Bank are demanding an immediate end to the blockade of Gaza, a form of collective punishment which has essentially turned the Gaza Strip into an open-air prison for its 1.5 million inhabitants.
The New Year’s Eve Day protests were scheduled to mark the one-year anniversary of Israel’s Operation: Cast Lead massacre in Gaza that killed more than 1,300 people and wounded more than 5,000.
Sema Onbus in her home in the Tulkarem refugee camp. (Jody McIntyre)
The following is former Palestinian political prisoner Sema Onbus’s story as told to The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre:
My name is Sema Onbus. I am 37 years old, from Tulkarem refugee camp.
My story starts when my brother was killed, on 6 September 2001, when an Apache [attack helicopter] dropped a bomb on him and his friends. It was the same day that my sister was due to get married, and he was on his way from Ramallah to visit the wedding when he was murdered. After my brother’s death, my husband decided to join the resistance, and started working with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. He had soon joined Israel’s wanted list.
On 28 October 2002, the Israeli army invaded the camp and started shooting at random, spraying bullets through the streets at anyone who happened to be in sight. My 15-year-old cousin was killed … they shot him six times. My husband was shot three times, twice in his stomach and once in his leg, but he survived.
On 28 March 2003, the army invaded the camp again. My husband was fighting back, and they killed him. His body was left lying on the street, riddled with bullets.
Forty days later, the army came to invade our home. They smashed through the windows and started destroying everything in the house, ordering the whole family out onto the street. They arrested my brother Abdullah, telling my father that they just wanted to talk with him for an hour. He was later taken to a military court, and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Two months later, they came back to invade our house again. This time it was 2am, and again they ordered the whole family out onto the streets, including all the kids. It was extremely cold outside and pouring with rain … I pleaded with them to at least let the children sleep, but they didn’t care.
The military commander went over to my father and told him that they wanted his son Mohammed, again saying that they just wanted to speak to him for an hour. “Like the hour for Abdullah?” my father replied, “You said you wanted to speak to Abdullah for an hour, and now we don’t know where he is!” They told my father that Abdullah is a terrorist, and to go back into the house. They put a bag over Mohammed’s head, tied his hands and threw him into the back of one of the jeeps.
We thought they were finished, and were preparing to go back inside when the commander stopped my father. “We’re not finished,” he told him, “we want your daughter Sema.”
“Is it not enough that you have arrested two of my sons, and killed another?” my father asked. “Why do you want Sema?” The soldiers tied my hands behind my back, and I was taken into another jeep.
At the time I had four children — my youngest son was still breast-feeding, and my three daughters were aged two, four and five. “Now my daughter is in jail,” my father said to the soldiers, “what can I do with her children? You have killed their father, and now arrested their mother and destroyed the house they live in … who is left to look after them?”
I was taken to a military base called Qudomeem, and Mohammed was taken somewhere else … I don’t know where. They left me locked in a room for hours, until 11am, when some female and male officers came in and started beating me together. Afterwards, a commander came in and retied my hands, and I was taken to Jalemah prison, near Haifa.
I was placed in solitary confinement — a room measuring one meter by one meter, with black walls and no light, under the ground. I was to stay in that room for the next two months. The soldiers had a special system which they could use to change the conditions in the room, so in the middle of the winter they would pump in cold air to make it even more unbearable. I was so cold that my hands were swollen and I couldn’t feel my legs … it felt like I was sleeping in a freezer.
When they interrogated me, they told me that if I didn’t speak they would arrest my father and make my children homeless. Sometimes they brought in my brother and beat him in front of me, or beat me in front of him. They tried many things to make me speak, but it didn’t work. After 60 days of living like this, I was moved to a women’s prison called Timon. After six days I was taken to trial at a military court, and sentenced to two and a half years.
I saw a lot of suffering in Timon. The soldiers treated the women very badly; they would beat us, spray us with gas, and throw cold water at us. Our families weren’t allowed to visit, the prison was crawling with insects and mosquitoes, and solitary confinement was regularly used as a punishment. The food was terrible … one day it was beans, the next day macaroni, today beans, and tomorrow macaroni. If you were sick there was no properly trained doctor to help you, and the only thing you would be given was an Acamol [pain killer] and a cup of water, no matter what the problem. Almost all of the women in the jail were ill — because the prison was underground it was very damp, and this caused many health problems; some girls had their hair falling out, some had very bad teeth, and some had stomach problems. The cells had no windows, and this is where we spent all our time; we slept in the cells, ate in the cells, sat in the cells, and there was hole in the floor where we had to go to the toilet in the same room … because of this there were many diseases.
It is everyone’s dream in prison to be free, and when I heard it was time for me to be released I was so happy. When I got home, I was so excited to see my children and my brothers and sisters, but when I went to hug my son, who was now three and a half years old, he didn’t want to hug me. When I left my home he was still breast-feeding, but now I was a stranger to him. I kissed him instead, but he was too scared to sleep in the same house as me that night, so he went to stay with some relatives instead. He loved them because they had looked after him while I was in prison, so they had become like his family. After two and a half years away it was difficult for me to know how to look after my children, because it was like they had forgotten me, and of course, even more difficult for them.
It’s not easy to bring up four children without a father. I am responsible for them and everything they need — to put their food on the table, a roof over their heads, to find a school for them to go to. I have to be a mother and father to them at the same time … you really can’t imagine what this life is like.
The kids ask me about their father all the time. I tell them that he is a martyr and has gone to heaven. They ask me how they can go to visit. Once, my daughter told me to get a ladder, take a knife and climb up and cut open the sky so I could bring their father back. Another time, my son said to go to the place under the ground where my father is buried and break it open with a hammer so you can bring him back. My eldest daughter once told me to speak to God on Jawwal [the Palestinian mobile phone company] and tell him to let us see our father. All the time they ask me why they killed their father and not somebody else. They have so many questions … sometimes I don’t have an answer.
One day, my son asked me for a shekel. I said, “OK, here is a shekel,” but he said “I don’t want a shekel from you, I want one from my father.”
I live today, but I am afraid of tomorrow … afraid that one day I will not be able to provide my children with what they need.
I wish we had peace here, so I could know that my family is safe. Unfortunately, the Israelis do not want peace.
We can speak every day and every night about how we are suffering, but it seems that there is no one listening.
Jody McIntyre is a journalist from the United Kingdom, currently living in the occupied West Bank village of Bilin. Jody has cerebral palsy, and travels in a wheelchair. He writes a blog for Ctrl.Alt.Shift, entitled “Life on Wheels,” which can be found at www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk. He can be reached at jody.mcintyre AT gmail DOT com.
